An anti-reform protester displays a large sign depicting President Obama as Adolf Hitler. [Source: Daily Kos]House Representative John Dingell (D-MI), an 83-year-old advocate of health care reform, hosts a “town hall” meeting in Romulus, Michigan, to discuss the Obama administration’s plans to reform health care. The forum has so many people attempting to participate that its organizer, the local chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), says it will sponsor a second forum at a later date. Like many other forums where health care is a primary topic of discussion, anti-health care protesters attempt to disrupt and dominate the discussion by shouting down and chanting over Dingell and other audience members (see June 30, 2009, July 6, 2009, July 25, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 31, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 2, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 6, 2009, and August 6-8, 2009). Louder and Angrier Participants Garner More Media Coverage - One audience participant, health care reform supporter Chris Savage, writes about the forum on the liberal blog Daily Kos. Savage also takes a photograph of an anti-health care reform protester carrying a large sign depicting President Obama as Adolf Hitler. He says that anti-reform protesters outnumber supporters approximately five to one. In the Huffington Post, Savage later writes: “Typically, the more hysterical the person’s message was or the more angrily they shouted, the more likely they were to get attention from the press. The young black man with the Obama-as-Hitler poster was the busiest one of them all.” Shouting Down Participants from Outset - Even before the event begins, protesters are shouting and catcalling, with one woman yelling to an elderly reform supporter: “You may be dead in five years! They may euthanize you!” AARP official Erick Schneidewind is shouted down with calls of “Traitor!” and “Liar!” before he can even introduce himself. One disabled woman, Marcia Boehm, attempts to tell her story—how she lost her health care in December 2008 and her pre-existing conditions make it difficult for her to get new coverage—but is shouted down by protesters who scream, “I shouldn’t have to pay for your healthcare!” and “Get government healthcare!” After Dingell takes the podium, another protester, Mike Sola, approaches him, pushing his son before him in a wheelchair. The man accuses Dingell of participating in a government plan to kill his son, who has cerebral palsy, by denying him health care. When Dingell denies the charge, the man begins shouting “Liar!” over and over, and trying to push forward into Dingell’s personal space with his wheelchair-bound son. He is prevented from getting within touching distance by Dingell staffers; he is soon escorted out by police officers. The Daily Kos blogger writes that no matter what Dingell attempts to say, he is countered and sometimes drowned out by screams and chants of “Liar!” “Traitor!” “Bullsh_t!” “Did you even read the bill?” (Dingell helped write the House version of the bill.) “The goverment is going to kill us when we are older!” “The goverment is providing abortion money!” and other shouts, boos, catcalls, and chants. One protester in the second session, Matt McCormack, is particularly noticeable; after the first few minutes of the meeting, where he repeatedly shouts phrases like “Look at me! Look at me! You are being used!” he begins a loud conversation on his cell phone, looking up periodically to scream “Liar!” at inappropriate moments, like when questions are being asked. McCormack later stands up, launches a spate of invective towards Dingell, and storms towards the podium, but is intercepted by police and escorted outside. On his blog, McCormack later claims to have been arrested. Attempts at Confrontation Outside Hall - Savage reports that outside the hall, anti-reform protesters attempt to provoke a physical confrontation with him, apparently in an attempt to create a disturbance for the media. One protester tells the blogger’s son, “Your dad is a coward!” for refusing to argue with him. [Daily Kos, 8/6/2009; Detroit Free Press, 8/6/2009; Huffington Post, 8/10/2009]Many from Outside District - Almost half of the attendees who sign in to the event put down addresses outside of Dingell’s district. The Huffington Post will note, “In short, the sign-in sheets lend credence to the accusation that the protests are the product of Washington-based ‘Astroturf’ organizations, rather than evidence of a groundswell of popular resistance to health care reform.” [Huffington Post, 8/11/2009]Refusing Offer to Meet One-on-One, Claims Intimidation - Dingell later offers Sola the chance to meet with him one-on-one to discuss his concerns over his son’s health care coverage, but Sola refuses. Dingell writes: “The offer still stands.… I have served in Congress and I have seen enough in my lifetime to know that the cause before us is too vital, too necessary, and too timely to allow it to fail. I remember many times in my career and in my life when powerful forces tried to stop progress. We cannot let this happen and we cannot allow this opportunity to go by without providing that each and every American has health care. As long as I have a vote, I will not let shouting, intimidation, or misinformation deter me from fighting for this cause.” [US House of Representatives, 8/7/2009] Sola will later tell a Fox News interviewer that one or more “liberal thugs” visit his house later in the evening to attempt to intimidate him. These “thugs” are supporters of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Sola claims, and says that if he experiences a second such visit, he will use “lethal force” to protect his family. [Hispanic Business (.com), 8/10/2009]

Conservative lobbyists cheer the IOC’s decision not to give the 2016 Olympics to Chicago. [Source: MSNBC / Towleroad (.com)]While many Americans are shocked and upset by the decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) not to award the 2016 Olympics to Chicago (see October 2, 2009), some conservatives cheer the decision as a personal defeat for President Obama, who spoke to the IOC on Chicago’s behalf. The conservative Web site Drudge Report blasts a large headline: “THE EGO HAS LANDED; WORLD REJECTS OBAMA: CHICAGO OUT IN FIRST ROUND.” [Huffington Post, 10/2/2009] A gathering of conservative lobbyists and officials at Americans for Prosperity erupts in cheering and applause when the news of Chicago’s loss is announced; the video of the reaction quickly makes the rounds of cable news and Internet outlets. [National Journal, 10/2/2009] Conservative blogger Erick Erickson of RedState.com, one of the right’s most influential Internet commentators, celebrates the loss: “Hahahahaha,” he posts. “I thought the world would love us more now that Bush was gone. I thought if we whored ourselves out to our enemies, great things would happen. Apparently not. So Obama’s pimped us to every two-bit thug and dictator in the world, made promises to half the Olympic committee, and they did not even kiss him.” [Erick Erickson, 10/2/2009] Fellow conservative blogger Michelle Malkin writes that the IOC decision effectively ends the Obama campaign motto of “Yes We Can” by introducing a new slogan: “No, You Can’t.” Malkin continues: “Like Icarus, President Obama’s giddy ego flight has ended with melted wax and fallen wings. This is a big win and a massive relief for taxpayers. But Chicago cronies are not going to take this well. Gird your loins. Who will be first to cry RAAAAAACIST?” [Michelle Malkin, 10/2/2009] The National Review calls the decision an “embarrassment for Obama,” and adds, “If he can’t work his personal magic with the Olympians, why does he expect it to work with the Iranians?” [National Review, 10/2/2009] Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh gleefully echoes Drudge’s “the ego has landed” headline, and says the decision makes this “the worst day of [Obama’s] presidency.” He claims that Obama “has failed.… We’ve got a two-year-old manchild with a Mars-sized ego, which today crashed and burned.” The loss of the Olympics is a direct reflection of Obama’s foreign policy, Limbaugh claims: “Our president, Barack Hussein Obama, has been running around the world for nine months telling everybody how much our country sucks.… Why would anybody award the Olympics to such a crappy place?… This is a moment of weakness, and weakness invites trouble. You think I’m laughing? What do you think’s happening in Tehran?” And he says, in apparent jest, “Who knew the Olympic Committee was a bunch of racists?” [ABC News, 10/2/2009] The Huffington Post counters that “if Democrats had attacked [former President] George W. Bush for pushing Dallas as an Olympics host, they would immediately have been branded as unpatriotic.” [Huffington Post, 10/2/2009]

A portion of Palin’s image, which puts gunsights on 20 Congressional districts, and names the Democrats who represent them. [Source: Sarah Palin / Huffington Post]Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK), a Fox News contributor and generally accepted leader of the far-right Tea Party movement, posts an image on her Facebook page that depicts gunsights (crosshairs) on 20 Congressional districts and lists the Democrats who currently represent them. The image reads: “20 House Democrats from districts we [Republicans] carried in 2008 voted for the health care bill.… IT’S TIME WE TAKE A STAND. Let’s take back the 20 together!” The liberal Huffington Post calls Palin’s image and rhetoric “decidely militant.” Conservative commentator Elizabeth Hasselback calls the use of gunsight imagery “despicable,” saying: “I think the way some Republicans are handling this is nothing more than purely despicable. The names that are next to and being highlighted by those crosshairs—I think it’s an abuse of the Second Amendment. I also feel as though every single person on here is a mother, a father, a friend, a brother, a sister, and to take it to this level is—it’s disappointing to see this come from the party, and I would hope that leaders like Sarah Palin would end this.” The image lists the 20 Democrats by name (noting that three are not running for re-election, and marking their districts in red): Vic Snyder (D-AR, retiring) Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ) Harry Mitchell (D-AZ) Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) John Salazar (D-CO) Betsy Markey (D-CO) Allen Boyd (D-FL) Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) Brad Ellsworth (D-IN, retiring) Baron Hill (D-IN) Earl Pomeroy (D-AL) Charlie Wilson (D-OH) John Boccieri (D-OH) Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA) Christopher Carney (D-PA) John Spratt (D-SC) Bart Gordon (D-TN, retiring) Thomas Perriello (D-VA) Alan Mollohan (D-WV) Nick Rahall (D-WV) [Huffington Post, 3/24/2010; Huffington Post, 3/26/2010]After one of the listed Democrats, Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), is shot in the head by an apparent assassin in January 2011, Palin’s staff will remove the image from Palin’s Facebook page and issue the claim that the gunsights were actually intended to represent surveyor’s marks. However, Palin herself will call the gunsights “bullseyes” that “target[ed]” her opponents. After the November 2010 election, when all but two on the list have either retired or been defeated, Palin will post on Twitter: “Remember months ago ‘bullseye’ icon used 2 target the 20 Obamacare-lovin’ incumbent seats? We won 18 out of 20 (90% success rate;T’aint bad).” Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler will write: “[I]t’s silly for her aides to claim she did not intend these to be gunsights. They can defend it, or apologize, but they shouldn’t pretend otherwise.” [Tammy Bruce, 1/8/2011; Washington Post, 1/11/2011]

Lawrence O’Donnell and Orly Taitz on O’Donnell’s MSNBC show ‘The Last Word.’ [Source: Mediaite (.com)]MSNBC talk show host Lawrence O’Donnell has an angry exchange with “birther” lawyer Orly Taitz (see November 12, 2008 and After, March 13, 2009, August 1-4, 2009, September 16-21, 2009, September 17, 2009, October 29, 2009, March 15, 2010, April 16, 2010, July 7 - August 16, 2010, August 9, 2010 - January 11, 2011, April 27, 2011, and April 27, 2011), who for years has insisted that President Obama’s “short form” birth certificate (see June 13, 2008) does not prove his citizenship. In light of Obama’s recent release of the “long form” birth certificate (see April 27, 2011), O’Donnell tells viewers that he has invited Taitz onto the show to see if she will apologize for her years of insistence that Obama is not a citizen. Taitz refuses to address the issue of the certificate, and instead attempts to tout her latest conspiracy theory, involving Obama’s Selective Service records that she says prove he has used a different Social Security number in the past (see April 27, 2011 and April 27, 2011). A clearly incensed O’Donnell repeatedly refuses to listen to her charges, and asks her repeatedly, “Will you talk about Barack Obama’s birth certificate?” After she continues to push her charge, even demanding that he give a close-up to the document she is attempting to show the camera, O’Donnell says: “All right, that’s it. Get her off this show. Get out. You’re not going to talk about the birth certificate so roll the tapes. Go home, you’re fired. Go play with Donald Trump.” [MSNBC, 4/27/2011; Raw Story, 4/28/2011] “Look, she’s crazy,” he says. “I invited a crazy person on this show to see if the crazy person… could say something responsive, something human, to the document that was released today… and she wants to play with all of her other kid’s toys.” [Huffington Post, 4/27/2011; MSNBC, 4/27/2011] After ending the interview and having Taitz taken off screen, O’Donnell tells viewers that he had not anticipated Taitz’s attempt to dodge any discussion of the birth certificate and instead talk about a new and different conspiracy theory. Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher writes: “I doubt that. He has clearly studied Orly’s modus operandi, and was ready for the barrage of patter. O’Donnell was a tad merciless, but it’s hard to cry any crocodile tears for Taitz, who has been given far too much attention so far.” [Mediaite (.com), 4/27/2011] The Huffington Post calls the segment “a wild, high-decibel, nearly incomprehensible interview.” [Huffington Post, 4/27/2011]

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